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Friday, March 03, 2017

Pret and Brexit. It's all about attitude.

At one
level, the woman on BBC Question Time who expressed concerns about who was
going to make her post-Brexit coffee at Pret was rather silly. She should have
realised that her comment was going to paint her as a pampered and affluent
London Remoaner.

It’s an easy
trap to fall into.

I remember
being in the audience 25 years ago for one of those terrible daytime TV
discussion shows – Kilroy or The Time The Place or similar – and we were
discussing childcare. Some lady started prattling on about nannies and I had to
remind her that this wasn’t actually most people’s experience of childcare
arrangements.

So the message
is clear: think before you open your mouth.

On the other
hand, you can’t help feeling the Pret lady had a pretty valid point.

Virtually no
one, as far as I can tell, who works in frontline hospitality in London comes
from the UK. Many will be citizens of other EU countries and have the name
badges with the flags to prove it. These are indeed the people who serve us
coffees and sandwiches, wait at tables in restaurants and staff the reception
desks in hotels.

So at an economic
and practical level, she is right on the money. And that money is probably
Euros rather than pounds sterling.

But the
reaction to her comments also revealed something about the Brexit divide in the
UK. It’s not just about class and age and location, although all those factors
are important. It’s about attitude.

Remainers go
to Pret to get their snacks and caffeine fix. Brexiters believe in packed
lunches and Swiss Nescafé. And I would stress this is not
necessarily because they are poorer. I mean even the wealthier, middle-class
Brexiters would eschew a lot of the modern coffee shops and sandwich bars.

They would say
they were too expensive and a waste of money, but they’d happily pay for
membership of their local golf club or have a splurge at the DIY store at the
weekend. They’d shell out hundreds a month so that they could have a better car
than their neighbours.

Middle-class
Brexiters have a different attitude to life. They have different priorities. If
they had money, they wouldn’t spend it on exotic-sounding coffees in fashionable
parts of London or care about the people who served them. They’d put the money
away for that cruise they had their eye on.

Before the
referendum, I remember having an argument with an older Leave supporter, who
lives in an affluent middle-class London suburb. I told him that I had applied
for an Irish passport to retain my right to live and work in Europe. His blank
expression told me that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want such a
right.